Red
by Elizabeth Twitch
Summary: A story told from the perspective of Cat's sister about their brother Kevin Valentine and the effect his problems have on their family. Very weird idea, involving Tori and Trina learning more about Cat, whom they always overlook. The end is based around Star Spangled Tori. Multi-chapter. No slash. Rating is because of dark themes and possible cursing, but it might change to K-plus.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi. This is a rewrite of my very first fanfiction story, which I deleted before it was finished. I can only hope that this one will be better!**

 **This takes place around Cat and her family in the episode** ** _Star Spangled Tori_** **in season 3.**

 _ **~ET**_

Chapter One: May's Story  


Cat's room was directly across the hall from May's. Sometimes when the former sleepwalked she would leave her room, keep walking straight, and slam into the other door, effectively waking her younger sister. Sometimes when the latter was scared of Kevin she would creep across to Cat's room and they would play Candy Land (Cat's favorite game) or listen to the Waggafuffles (which they both still liked even though Cat was eleven and May was almost nine). May was always thankful to have more than one sibling. That way she wasn't stuck with just Kevin.

In the morning May would wake up in Cat's room or her own, yawn, and trudge down the blue-painted hall to the bathroom. There she would brush her teeth, wash her face, clean her ears and sigh at and comb her dark brown hair. She knew she shouldn't complain: her hair was exactly the same color as Cat's before she dyed it, but after seven months of seeing her sister's velvet locks every day she wished constantly that she knew where Momma hid the different colored hair dyes. Cat knew but wouldn't tell her; red hair was something of a tradition with the Valentines. Cat said that she didn't want May to be messed up too soon.

Poppa drove both girls to school on his way to work. Cat was lucky and got to go to Hollywood Arts. She had just started there that year. May knew that she would audition and probably get in as soon as she was old enough.

Anyway, right now May was still stuck at boring old L.A. Primary.

Life was good at school (no matter how boring May found it), even without Cat and Momma and Poppa. May had her friends, the Harpers, Billy, Piper and Frankie ***** , who reminded her of Cat's friend Jade. They were fun, but May knew they didn't believe her when she mentioned Kevin.

Cat's friends never believed her, either. Cat said so. The only person who seemed to understand Kevin was Mr. Jeffrey, Poppa's boss. He paid Poppa more money than he paid other people so that Poppa could afford Kevin's treatment. This was Poppa's biggest secret.

When May got home she would usually go to her room to do homework. She didn't want to risk Kevin leaving his room and finding her in the lounge or kitchen or living room or TV room.

May loved their house but she hated that it had so many rooms. Momma and Poppa said they were lucky to have so much money, but May didn't see what good it did. Neither did Cat. Kevin, on the other hand, didn't seem to think about such things.

When Cat got home she would tell May stories about Mr. Sikowitz's class or Andre writing a new song and Tori singing it or Jade hurting someone with scissors or Rex the bizarre doll carried around by Cat's crush, Robbie. It seemed that so many interesting things happened in Hollywood Arts, from concerts with pop stars and music producers attending to fantastically creative schools plays written by Mr. Sikowitz to Secret Santa gift exchanges. May remembered the time when she had answered Momma's phone and learned that Cat had been accepted into the most prestigious performing school in the country. May would always remember the shock and the excitement for her sister, but also the fear that her sister would be too wrapped up in her future as a superstar to still love her.. She was joyously surprised when Cat continued to be a caring sister.

May would have done anything to see that.

May dreaded dinner because they knew they would have to spend it with Kevin. Cat was always the good girl who liked spending time with Kevin to see if she could make him like her. May tried to avoid him at all costs. She was intimidated.

It was at dinner that day when the phone rang and Momma went to answer it. They heard "Yes, this is she ... Which daughter? ... Are you sure? ... Well, I'll talk to her - to all of them about it, but I don't think ... Oh, okay. Thanks for calling."

She put the phone down, stood for a few minutes with her palm in her forehead. Then she sighed and scooted back to the table.

Poppa started asking questions, but Momma waved him off. This meant, _we'll talk about it later,_ in Parent. Cat and May were silent, knowing that whatever was happening was not good and that it involved one of the two of them. Cat was Cat, but even she could be sharp about certain things. Kevin was silent too, but he was busied by making his pasta look like a Van Gogh painting. May doubted he had even the faintest idea of what was happening around him.

May tried too forget about the troubling phonecall. That day was a Friday, so Cat and May were able to stay up well in to the night singing along to their favorite songs which May played at full volume on her laptop. Kevin, eighteen years old but capable of sleeping through almost anything, went to bed at seven.

 _"Hello, is everybody watching?"_ sang May.

 _"Before we get the party started,"_ sang Cat.

 _"You know you wanna be invited -"_

 _"So step right up and get a taste of what you're bitin'"_ they both yelped.

Cat insisted that May was the best singer that she had ever heard and that May was almost guaranteed of getting into Hollywood Arts one day. May knew that her sister was incapable of lying and that this was big praise coming from Cat, who went to school with Jade West and Andre Harris.

May, however, thought that _Cat_ was the best singer in the world.

They ended up falling asleep on the floor of May's room, Cat clutching her purple giraffe, and dreamed of dancing onstage with Ginger Fox.

Poppa came in and woke May up very early. It couldn't have been past six. He took her, half asleep, by the elbow, and led her into the lounge, where Momma was already waiting.

"May," she said, "I want to listen very carefully."

May waited. Poppa sat next to her and wrapped his arm around her. His form of comfort. May wondered what had happened that was so terrible.

Momma continued, "Do you remember your Uncle Jesse?"

May did not. She had, however, heard Cat talking about him. He sounded almost as weird as Kevin.

"Well, he has joined a new company in Seattle. They help people with meditation and connecting with their 'inner selves'."

"Are you going to send Kevin there?" asked May. Hopefully.

"No. We are thinking about sending you there."

 _"Me?"_

Not her. This was a mistake. She wasn't crazy Kevin, or weird Cat. She didn't throw butter at passersby out her window or obsessively buy things online. She was the good daughter. The normal daughter.

Was Momma sure that the person on the phone had said 'Maybelle'? May asked. The answer was yes.

"Not because there's anything wrong with you, sweetheart. We know you're already a nice, calm girl. But Uncle Jesse is not nice or calm. He has to select a distant relative to stay with hi and help him with duo therapy. And he chose you! You should be flattered."

Flattered.

"You would live in Seattle with Jesse and your cousins Jesse Jr. and Socco ******. It's the best thing for your uncle. And," Momma took a deep breath, knowing how she could get May to go, "you could get away from Kevin.

May was silent.

"It's entirely your choice," said Poppa. "Even if you do go, you will absolutely come back to visit. Just think about it."

May did. She thought about Cat. She thought about Kevin even more. She thought about her boring school and her friends that didn't listen to her and the long sleepless nights she spent afraid of her brother. She thought about all of these things. She spent days with all these angles swirling around her head. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, she agreed. She went to Seattle to live with her uncle and her cousins.

Cat was the only one who cried when she got on the plane.

 ***-references to the Quads from** ** _Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn,_** **Billy from** ** _The Thundermans,_** **Piper from** ** _Henry Danger,_** **and Frankie from** ** _The Haunted Hathaways._**

 ** _**-yes, I do mean Socco, Spencer's friend from iCarly!_**

 **Please R &R!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter two! I want to say thank you to Boris Yeltsin. For the first time ever, a fic written by me has had a review within 24 hours!**

 **I wondered if I should have said this in the last author's note, but, will this has a TINY bit of crossover with iCarly and other Nick shows, it's not even close to enough to make this a crossover story. That last chapter was about as far as it goes.**

 **Also, for anyone who doesn't know, Kevin is supposedly the actual name of Cat's brother in an unaired 5th-season episode. At least that's what I read. The song Cat and May sang in the last chapter was "Number One", by Ginger Fox.**

 **Dan Schneider owns everything except for May.**

 **Thank you, enjoy, R &R!**

 **~ET**

Chapter Two: Five Years Later

The news that Uncle Jesse was quitting his treatment and sending May home arrived five years too late.

For the first few months after May's departure from California, all was well. Cat missed her obviously, but they often spoke on Skype. But then weird things started happening. Calls from May grew less and less frequent, winding down to once a week, tops, and when she was on the phone May seemed tired and stressed out. She kept telling them how much Kevin and Jesse were alike, which worried Cat to no end. She explained to her family that the therapy included lots of meditation. The reason a relative was needed from far away was for a particularly difficult exercise in which someone close to the subject has to try to calm him or her down by telling stories about the family that the subject had lost touch with.

Cat thought this exercise sounded strange. It sounded like something reserved for people who _really_ need help.

"How crazy is Uncle Jesse?" she asked her mom once.

"Let me put it to you this way," was the answer, "he enjoys bathing his feet in chicken grease."

"That sounds like something Kev would do."

"I know sweetie."

A few moments of uncomfortable silence followed. Then Cat said, "Do you think May is safe living with him?"

Linda Valentine sighed. "I hope so, Cat. I hope so. Would you get me the ice cream?"

That conversation occurred long after the calls from May finally stopped and long after the Seattle police department were unable to locate Jesse's facility, causing them to drop the Valentine's missing girl case. This was after Linda and Cat's father Jed stopped frantically searching for May online, stopped wasting money on trips to Seattle and buying every phone book they could get their hands on. This was after they had given May up for lost forever.

The then fifteen-year-old Cat had handed her mother a carton of Funky Nut Blast ice cream to be "medicined" as Cat liked to say, and trudged to her room, as usual avoiding looking at the door across the hall. Thinking about May was so painful to her that she never even spoke about her to her friends. Jade was the only one who had ever met Cat's little sister, but Cat doubted that she remembered or cared.

Sometimes Cat wondered about opening up to her friends about her problems. How her parents always seemed to be mopey lately. How she had been fighting with twenty-three-year-old Kevin much more often now, and how both of the remaining Valentine kids seemed to be getting weirder and weirder as time went on. Cat knew that people thought that what she said most of the time seemed odd or nonsensical, and how her eternal happiness intimidated most of her friends. But if a person can't stay happy, she always thought, how do they get through life.

And so she was Cat Valentine, ditzy, bubbly, red-headed weirdo from Hollywood Arts.

The one thing that Cat absolutely wished her friends would pay attention to was what she told them about her brother. Kevin was slowly losing a piece of his sanity everyday. Sometimes he would run away from home or get arrested. Other days he would do something completely random and ridiculous like try to replace the Valentines' plumbing with hundreds of straws taped together.

All of Cat's neighbors thought that the family was funny, something to laugh at over dinner. Cat, however, couldn't help but worry for the safety of the one sibling she had left.

She knew that one day Kevin might hurt himself very badly in some impulsive stunt that Momma and Poppa couldn't protect him from.

Now Cat was sixteen. She still had her friends Jade, Beck, Robbie, and Andre, plus a newer HA student named Tori Vega. Cat wasn't sure if she considered Tori's obnoxious sister, Trina, a "friend", but they did end up hanging out a lot.

She was sitting with Tori on her left and Jade and Beck on her right one day in Sikowitz's class. Robbie and Andre were behind her.

"And so," exclaimed Sikowitz, "Shakespeare wanted people seeing his plays to consider it a memorable experience. WHICH IS WHY he made the Globe Theater without a floor. So it was completely urine-proof and people could pee wherever they wanted."

"My brother made my house urine-proof once," mused Cat.

"Fascinating," Jade muttered.

Sikowitz looked at the two girls for a moment before directing his attention back to the lesson. "Anyway, here's what we're going to do today. You students are going to take turns going onstage and performing a scene and the rest of us are going to make as much noise as possible to try and distract - "

The door burst open and everyone in the room jumped. Sikowitz looked irritated that his lesson was being interrupted again.

The person who had just barged into the room was none other than Lane, the official student guidance counselor of Hollywood Arts.

"Yes, what is it, Lane?" asked Sikowitz.

The other man was very out of breath.

"I...see...I just...phone call...oh my!" he panted. His eyes were bulging right out of their sockets.

"Hurry up!" demanded Jade.

"What's wrong?" asked Tori, looking worried.

Lane finally began to catch his breath. "It's...it's about...Cat."

"Me?"

Lane looked right at her (along with everyone else in the room). Cat knew her friends were worried for her. Kids at Hollywood Arts always came to Lane for help. If Lane came to _you_ that usually meant you were in tremendous trouble.

"Yes," Lane gulped. "Cat, your mom's on the phone. She says your phone is turned off and it's urgent that she speaks to you _right this second._ "

"Kay kay!" Cat squealed before jumping up and running out of the room. "Sorry, Sikowitz!" she called after her.

As she ran through the HA hallways toward Lane's office, Cat wondered what happened that her mother was so frantic. What had Kevin done now?

When Cat raced into Lane's office and picked up the phone lying on his desk, however, she discovered that the source of all this fuss had nothing to do with Kevin at all.

"Mom? Mom are you okay?" Cat practically screamed. Behind her, Lane said to lower her voice but Cat barely noticed.

"Cat, is that you? Oh thank god. Cat, I want you to hang up this phone right now and check you messages, okay."

Ignoring Lane's questions, Cat spared no time in doing as she was told. She ripped off her backpack, fished out her phone, and turned it on.

Then she dropped it.

"Cat, what's wrong!?" demanded Lane.

Cat didn't answer, but she did bend over and retrieve her phone with shaking fingers. She turned it on once again and tried to soothe herself as she reread what was printed across the screen:

 _19 missed calls from May._


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three: Coming Home

For the first time ever, Cat ditched school. She just walked out, and Lane, who had no clue what this was all about but guessed it was something important, didn't even try to stop her. She walked down the street from school then veered around a corner and pulled out her phone. Without thinking she called May back.

Ringing. Ringing. Ringing. A voice!

"Hi? Cat?"

"Ohmygosh. Hi May!"

"Hi!"

"Hi."

May hesitated on the other end. She had hoped that calling the family she disappeared from would be easier than it seemed. It was not, and she could feel dread in her belly. "Um, I hope I didn't interrupt anything."

"Oh, of course not! I was just in Sikowitz's class and he really doesn't care if we walk out because...well, you know. He's craaaazy."

"You still have Sikowitz?"

"Yeah." Cat giggled. "Remember me telling you about him?"

"Yeah I do. H-how's the singing coming?"

Instead of just telling May, Cat decided to demonstrate. She loved to sing but for once she felt her voice crack in nervousness. Was May coming back? Maybe hearing Cat sing would remind her of the fun they had as kids.

"That was good!" said May, to Cat's relief. "What was that song?"

"Freak the Freak Out."

"Right. So I'm sure Kevin showed you! What do you think?"

"What do you mean?"

"N-nothing, I guess."

Cat's face began morphing into an expression of such anxiety and frustration that people walking by were giving her odd looks. Why did May call? Just to get Cat all excited and then never speak to her again? Cat almost considered hanging up on her sister, but then thought better: this was the sister she had been missing non-stop for five years. Was Cat really going to lose them their chances of reconnection?

"So, May, what's up?" Cat could barely keep the sadness out of her voice.

"Glad you asked. See...I'm coming back home. This weekend."

Cat screamed. On the other end, May dropped the phone. Cat kept screaming in excitement, being so loud that passersby didn't just look at her funny, they stopped in her tracks, wondering if she was having some sort of seizure.

"Cat! Cat, cut it out! Are you okay?!"

"YES YES YES! I'M SO HAPPY!"

"Me, too."

"YOU'RE FINALLY COMING HOME! YAY! I have to tell Mom and Dad and Kevin and Mr. Giraffe and all my friends...!"

"Cat, calm down!"

"I can't!"

May giggled and Cat laughed hysterically and suddenly it was as though the past five years never happened. They were sisters again.

Then Cat remembered what May had started to say about Kevin. "Hey, what did you think Kevin showed me?"

"Huh? Oh, nevermind. You'll see for yourself soon, anyway."

Cat was too excited to press the point, and instead continued to giggle happily. When the conversation finally ended Cat was reluctant to hit 'end call', but May beat her to it. Cat skipped home, not even bothering to go back to school and collect her books. She didn't need them for her homework. Anyway, she was too jubilant to care. She felt like she was in a cloud...

Until the second Cat walked in the door of her house and her parents ran forward, each grabbing one of Cat's arms.

"Cat!" cried her Poppa. "Did you call May back!?"

"She left a message on our answering machine saying that she called you but you didn't answer!" screeched her Momma. "I almost had a heart attack!"

"What did she say?"

"Is she alright?"

"Is she coming back?"

"Is Jesse alright?"

"WHAT HAPPENED?"

Cat furrowed her brow and sharply told her parents to stop squeezing her arms, step back, and let her speak. Then she quickly glanced over their shoulders. Kevin was nowhere to be seen.

Not waiting a second more, Cat relayed to her parents the conversation between herself and May. Their reaction was very satisfying; it including lots of happy-tears and family group-hugs (family except for Kevin, of course). They were so very happy and for the first time in ages Cat felt light.

She still felt light that evening when she bounded into her room that night with the full intention of getting a good night's sleep. She plugged in her pink PearPhone, kicked off her shoes, quickly changed into her candy-patterned jammies, and flopped into her bed, turning off her purple table lamp on her way down. The room was immediately engulfed in darkness, and Cat busied one hand with pulling her blankets up to her chin and the other with grabbing onto Mr. Giraffe, her favorite purple cuddle-toy. (A gift from her Nona. Naturally. Nona always gave the best gifts.)

"You'll never guess what happened to me today, Mr. G! I bet you remember May, don't you?"

She giggled calmly. Her family was back together. After five years everything would be okay again.

Except it wouldn't, because even as Momma and Poppa Skyped May one more time and called Nona and Uncle Buck and Aunt Pearl and Uncle Walter to give them the good news of May's reappearance, Kevin stayed silent. Sometimes he hovered in the background, fixing the rest of his family with a cold glare. Other times he would skulk back to his room and lurk there in the dark.

Cat loved her brother, truly. But it was impossible to know if he really loved her back. And if he didn't, he certainly didn't love May. Cat and Momma and Poppa were thrilled with May's coming home, but would Kevin be able to handle it?

Cat decided to find out, despite her parents' pleas for her to leave Kevin alone. It was eleven PM when she slipped out of her room and into his.

"Kevin?" she whispered. "Kev? It's me, Cat! Please talk to me. Isn't it great that May's coming back this weekend. You _are_ happy about that, right? Kev?"

"May," came the voice. It sent shivers down the young girl's spine. "She's the little one, isn't she?"

Kevin rose from his bed and stepped forward. The light coming in from the door fell on his face and Cat relaxed. Like Kevin's personality, his voice could sound cold and sinister. But up close, he would always be the big brother of the sweet redhead, and even now Cat could see the resemblance in their faces. It made her calm...and a tiny bit frightened.

"Yeah," said Cat.

"My _other_ sister."

"Y-yeah."

"You haven't seen her in a long time, have you?"

"No. Neither have you. It's been almost five years now."

Kevin looked away. "She texted me a couple months ago."

 _"What?"_

"All she said was, 'Hi Kev. Don't tell M&P about this message. Don't want to get their hopes up. Uncle J just gave me the phone back, and it never lasts long. Talk to you soon, I hope. BTW, make sure Cat sees this.' That's all she put."

"Make sure I see what?"

"The photo she attached."

Kevin knew Cat would want to see, so he grabbed his phone and found the picture. It was of May. The little girl had certainly changed from a tiny child to a young teenager, but Cat could recognize the dark eyes, dimples, curly hair. The photo wasn't a selfie or anything. It looked like May had set up a camera with a tripod. She was in the center of the shot, in an almost bare, whitewashed room. She sat on a stool, hands folded in her lap. She didn't look _happy,_ per se, but she had this strange, half smile on her face as she looked directly at the camera.

Her facial expression wasn't what caught Cat's full attention, though. Cat suddenly knew what May had meant earlier when she asked Cat, "What do you think?" She was talking about the color of May's hair.

Red.


	4. Chapter 4

**Sooo, not much to say. this chapter is poorly written, but it might still be interesting. This is where Cat sees May again. Yay!**

 **I would like to thank everybody who has reviewed and followed and favorited. This is by far the most popular story I have ever written. So exciting!**

 **Anyway, please enjoy.**

Chapter Four: Reunions and Family Emergencies

The next day, Cat wasted no time in asking her friends for their help in the situation. She started with Jade.

"Do you remember May?" asked Cat.

"No."

Cat tried again. "My little sister. You met her a couple times when we were kids."

"I don't remember."

"She went missing...?"

"Huh. Nope, not ringing any bells. Is there a reason you're bothering me with questions?"

Cat sighed. She loved Jade, but the goth was nothing short of infuriating at times. Across the table, Jade's boyfriend Beck rolled his eyes and shot Cat an apologetic look.

"Don't be so rude," scolded Beck.

"Don't tell me what to do!"

Also at the table, Tori, Robbie, and Andre ignored Beck and Jade's squabble and stared at Cat. They seemed genuinely interested.

"You had a sister?" asked Tori and Robbie at the same time.

"And she disappeared?" asked Andre.

"I still don't remember her," Jade cut in, seemingly finished with her lover's quarrel. "Was she as crazy as Kevin?"

"No! She was really nice and sweet. But she went missing."

Tori and Robbie and Andre and Beck looked as if they wanted more details, so Cat just said, "It's kind of a long story, but May went to live with our Uncle Jesse. And then she disappeared. For five years."

"Wow," said Robbie.

"That's rough," added Andre.

"I can't imagine Trina going missing for that long," mused Tori, referring to her own sister.

"Yeah we've all missed her a lot. Anyway, Jade..."

"Ugh."

"Would you do something for me?"

"Not if I don't have to."

"But we're friends!"

"I don't care!"

Jade stood up and angrily left the table, accidentally leaving behind her new pair of green scissors. Beck raised his eyebrows and watched her go, then looked back at Cat, who was staring forlornly at the burrito in front of her.

"Don't mind Jade," Beck apologized. "She's in a bad mood because her dad took away all her scissors except for this pair."

"Okay."

Tori looked disgusted at her frenemy's actions for a moment before directing her own attention back to her red-headed friend. She was truly interested in what Cat was saying and wanted to know if she could help in any way.

"Cat," she said, "what were you going to ask Jade?"

Cat, who had started to cry a little bit, said, "If she'd drive me to the airport to pick up May on Friday! She's finally coming home and I want everything to be perfect!" Cat broke down into sobs.

"Oh, Cat, don't cry," said Tori, and she awkwardly patted her friend's back. "I can't drive, but maybe I can get Trina to take you."

"Really?" Cat sniffed.

"Really."

Almost immediately after she heard the school's end bell, Cat rushed up to the elder Vega sister to ask her. Trina seemed very irritated by the assignment and told Cat in no uncertain terms to go away. Cat almost started crying again, but Tori reappeared and came to her rescue. She told Trina that if she didn't do the for Cat, she would steal Trina's new Fazzini boots and throw them away. That was all it took for Trina to become Tori and Cat's slave.

The days passed unbelievably slowly for Cat. Life seemed swell. Momma and Poppa fought much less. Even Kevin acted slightly less crazy than usual.

Of course, Cat couldn't forget the red hair. She couldn't say why it had bothered her so much. It was just May wanting to show her love for her family by participating in a Valentine tradition. Cat should be flattered.

But instead she let the uneasiness engulf her. It had always seemed to her as though having red hair in the family was something deep and iconic...something with a greater meaning that most people as young as Cat and May didn't notice.

Cat's hair was velvet. Like blood...and like her favorite cupcakes. Kevin's was darker, emphasizing the swirls of his curly hair. Momma's was a natural auburn, matching her pale complexion, and Poppa's was so light it was almost pink, the color confined to the very ends of his short, dark hair. Every single one of the Valentines had his or her own unique hairstyle, but eventually it came down to them having the same color, just in different shades.

It was as though May, for the first time, was officially a part of the family that had been labelled "DANGEROUS" in their old hometown.

And Cat pitied her.

But she tried to push this out of her head for the time being and instead focused on being excited. Friday finally came, and everyone in the Valentine house was ecstatic. After school, Cat went home, until the Vega sisters arrived and knocked on the door.

"Hi!" said Momma. "You must be Tori and Trina!"

"Yeah, now can we just get this over with?" muttered Trina. Tori looked agonized before quickly apologizing for her sister's behavior.

Tori, Cat, and Trina, piled into Trina's car, the sisters in the frontseat, Cat in the backseat.

"You need to be less rude!" hissed Tori.

"Me? I didn't want to do this anyway.

A couple minutes of silence passed before Tori said, "Hey, Cat? I just realized I didn't get to meet your brother."

"Oh, yeah. He's not allowed to leave the house anymore, so he usually just stays in his room. You know. Cause he has nothing else to do."

"Riiight."

Tori and Trina didn't say much more, but Cat could almost see thought bubbles above their heads. Tori's said, _Poor Cat, having to live with him all the time._ Trina's said, _Cat's brother must be a real freak show._

They finally got to LAX and waited outside a large gate for May. Cat kept hopping from side to side, her eyes scanning. "Do you see her?" she kept asking. "Tell me if you see her."

"Cat, we don't know what she looks like," Tori reminded her gently.

"Think of a young me with curly hair."

But a young Cat with curly hair didn't show up anytime soon and around the time when the flow of passengers arriving from their recently landed flights began to dwindle, Cat gave up and sunk into a nearby chair. She began to cry, putting her head in her hands.

Tori was about to go over there and comfort her friend, when Trina nudged her. Trina pointed at the person she had seen, and when Tori looked she had to do a double-take. The girl fit Cat's description _exactly._ There was no doubt that the two were related, as they had the same eyes, face, and short stature. The only difference was that this girl had wild corkscrew curls. Even more interesting was the girl's hair. Like Cat's, it was synthetically red (though unlike Cat's soft velvet, this new color was a bright crimson-orange).

Tori knew it was May, and moved to call out to Cat, but the approaching stranger (who must have been watching them, thus knowing that Tori and Trina were with Cat) put her finger to her lips, and Tori's mouth snapped shut.

May crept down the back of the large room, snuck up behind Cat, and tugged a lock of the older girl's hair.

Cat's eyes widened. "Danger!" she shrieked, spinning around.

Then she saw May. Cat blinked, then grinned as wide as she could.

"May!"

"Cat!"

The sisters hugged as though each had a mission to rid the other of every scrap of oxygen within her body. When they broke apart they remained staring at each other.

"May, I missed you so much!"

"I missed you too."

"Where did you _go_?"

May suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Um, I'll tell you later" she said, jerking her head in the direction of the approaching Tori and Trina.

Cat didn't get the hint. "Why can't you tell me now?"

"B-because I want to tell Momma and Poppa too."

"Oh. Kay kay!"

"Sooo, Cat," said Tori, easing around to get a better look at May "Aren't you going to introduce us?'

"If you are, do it quickly," said Trina. "I have an appointment with Foon-Yee for a foot-bleaching this afternoon."

Cat took no notice of this strange comment and instead complied with Tori's request. "Tori, Trina, this is my sister, May."

"Hi!" said Tori.

"May, these are my friends."

"We just know her," said Trina quickly.

May looked at them a moment, a bizarre smile on her face. "Nice to meet you," she said. There was something strangely mechanical about her voice. "Shall we hit the road. There's something I need to tell Momma and Poppa."

 **Please R &R!**

 **~ET**


End file.
